


Beginnings

by ThreeWhiskeyLunch



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Rare Pair, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, the lovers bit of that is implied, they never meet in canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:15:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22130896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThreeWhiskeyLunch/pseuds/ThreeWhiskeyLunch
Summary: After the death of Granny Rags, Slackjaw makes his way out of the sewers to find someone very interesting.Very interesting indeed.
Relationships: Slackjaw/Cecilia
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19





	Beginnings

Ain’t no such thing as happy endings. Happy beginnings, maybe. Auspicious beginnings. Bad luck beginnings. Beginnings that never should have been. But endings means someone’s dying, or leaving, or otherwise parting company. And there ain’t nothing happy about that, unless of course that person deserves what’s coming to them. Still, it ain’t no happy ending in the traditional sense. Slackjaw’s pretty sure what the writers of those stories mean when they say _“And they lived happily ever after…”_ is _“I’m all out of ideas and tired of writing this story. So imagine what you will about what might happen after this point.”_ Frankly, he thinks writers like that are just plain lazy.

He don’t know anyone who’s had a happy ending.

Certainly not Granny Rags, laying on the ground, body cooling quickly as the stone underneath her sucks any remaining warmth from her. She had about the least happy ending a person could ask for. All that power from the Void still couldn’t stop the inevitable. If it hadn’t been from Slackjaw--with Corvo’s help, of course--then it was gonna be some other bastard with enough luck to hold until the life is choked out of her.

Slackjaw finishes his cigarette, watching from a safe distance to make sure that the old hag’s body don’t start twitching. And then when he’s sure she’s good and dead, he follows Corvo’s trail out of the sewers.

They’re closer to the Hound’s Pit Pub than he’d thought. Down underground, everything gets twisted and turned until he’s not even certain what direction he’s heading. But the small light at the end of the tunnel is warm and welcoming with natural daylight and seems thankfully free of rats, so he keeps on until he climbs out into what appears to be a walled off section of basement. Light comes from up some stairs where he hears the pacing of footsteps, back and forth across the old wood floor, and quiet mutterings. He creeps up the steps quiet-like, not certain who might be waiting up there to ambush him. At the top he peers around the corner into a small group of rooms and sees a young woman craning to look through the boarded up windows.

He catches sight of some tinned whale meat and his stomach rumbles. He has no idea how long Granny had had him down there in those sewers, but it had to be a good, long time for his stomach to make noises like that.

The girl mutters to herself--he hears _Come on_ and _Corvo_ \--and that perks up his ears so he feels confident in clearing his throat. He don’t want to startle the girl, he’s damned certain she weren’t expecting no one else to come climbing up out of that sewer. She jumps a little and turns, an angry scowl lighting fire to green eyes.

“Who the hell are you?”

If he had his hat, he’d take it off. As it is, he spreads his hands wide to show he don’t mean her no harm. “Sorry, ma’am. Name’s Slackjaw—”

“Slackjaw!” She looks closer at him, and then behind him as if expecting the rest of his gang to rise up from below as well. When no one else appears (and he coulda told her he was alone, but he knows as well as any other that seeing is eighty-nine percent of believing), she narrows her eyes at him and crosses her arms over her chest. “What in the Void are _you_ doing here?”

He points over his shoulder, indicating the stairs and the hole to the sewer system beyond. “Corvo saved my life down there. Followed him out.”

There’s something about the way she looks at him, as if assessing his worth and coming up not quite as short as she’d expected. Her eyes flash that brilliant green again and he finds himself looking back more closely at her. Red hair threatens to escape out from under her newsboy cap. She’s scrawny--her wrist bones stick out from her skin like they’re trying to make an escape--and who's ain’t these days? But her skin is pink and healthy and her eyes shine with ire.

She huffs. “Well, you’d do best to sit tight. Corvo’s out there somewhere—”

He picks up the sound of what can only be a tallboy as it stalks the street outside. The noise captures her attention and she turns back to the window and the tiny crack she’d been looking out of. “Damn choffers…”

He moves up behind her. Now that he’s close up next to her, he sees how much taller he is than her--almost near a foot if he guesses right. “There’s a better peeky hole up here, Miss...uh…?”

She gives him a glance, and then at the bigger hole in the wood that he can look out of. “Cecilia. Cecilia Sharp.”

He drags a chair over for her to stand on, extending a hand to help her up. “Very pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Cecilia Sharp.” He puts a question mark on Miss, hoping to glean more information out of her without appearing overly rude. Because his interest is piqued by this apparent mouse of a girl who is certainly no mouse deep down where that fire burns.

She ignores his hand and grunts at his unspoken question, although whether that’s out of confirming her status or pure cantankerous need to ignore him he’s not certain. She has to bend down a little to look out now, her head higher than his. He leans against the window frame, half his attention on the tallboy outside and half on the barely restrained energy that comes off the girl next to him. He can hear her breathing, deep and even, in and out, smell the lye soap in her hair and wool of her jacket.

She whispers, “Come on, Corvo. What are you doing out there?” Then she tells him what happened: how the Loyalists had betrayed Corvo, how Emily had been taken away by Havelock, the High Overseer, and the Pendleton brats’ baby brother. How Cecilia had run and hid, hearing the gunshots from the yard as the guards moved in, bringing their tallboys and their spotlights. How she feared the worst, hadn’t seen the other staff since it had all happened. She’d been stuck in this apartment for several days, had begun to run out of food, and had started to work at the door down in the basement when Corvo had appeared from the sewer.

“Right mess he looked, too,” she says softly, mindful of the guards that pace below the window. “Smelled even worse.”

Slackjaw reckons he don’t smell any better, but she ain’t so much as wrinkled her nose at him about it. 

Some minutes go by, while the tallboy paces back and forth around the Hounds Pit Pub like a cat stalking its prey up a tree. He can hear at least one other that must be on the far side, out of sight from where they are and wonders to himself how they’re gonna get out of this fine mess (back through the stinking sewers, with the weepers and the dead body of Granny Rags if nothing else).

But then the girl takes a soft breath. “There he is!” And sure enough if he don’t see Attano skirting the edge of the roof a building over with what looks to be a tank of whale oil hoisted up on one shoulder. The tallboy comes to a stop just below him, humming and sputtering while the mounted guard fidgets with his bow, oblivious to the danger that waits. Attano freezes, suspended above, waiting it out with all the patience of a saint. He can feel the waves of tension rolling off Cecilia as they both watch, barely daring to breathe, much less make a sound.

Attano’s goal must not be to drop the tank on the tallboy, otherwise he’d have surely let loose by now. What his ultimate plan is, Slackjaw can barely guess. Finally the tallboy steps forward, back toward where the two of them are hiding and the man up on the roof creeps forward and turns the corner, out of sight.

Cecilia takes a deep, relieved breath, her shoulders sagging as she turns to look at Slackjaw, those green eyes lit up like one of Sokolov’s magical contraptions. He nods and swallows down every ungentlemanly thing that crosses his mind, certain that none of them would be appropriate. Or probably welcome. It’s been a long time some girl’s slapped him good for something he’s said. He’s not about to test the waters with this one.

She looks like she knows a thing or two about using her fists.

It’s only another minute when there’s a sort of explosion of electricity that arcs from guard to guard. “Get down!” He pulls her off the chair and they hit the floor as the very air crackles and vibrates around them, every hair on his body standing upright and a metallic tang burning on his tongue.

It’s over before it’s barely begun, silence hanging on drifting ozone. Still he doesn’t move, shielding her body as they wait for any sort of noise to signal the all clear. But there’s nothing. No clarion bell. No shout of relief. Only the sound of their suppressed breathing. He refrains from looking down at her, afraid of being drawn into the siren song of those green eyes.

Cecilia shifts, attempting to push him away. “My apologies, miss.” He stands, holding out his hand to her which she only frowns at and pushes up from the floor on her own. Slackjaw hides his smirk of approval only by turning his head and sputtering a cough. Spunky little thing.

“They’re down,” she whispers, looking back out the tiny crack in the slats. “They’re all down! Look!” She grabs the sleeve of his shirt, pulling him closer to the window, her hand thoughtlessly resting warm and firm on his arm. It takes a moment for him to remember to look up and out the window and indeed, all the guards and the tallboy are scattered on the street like buckshot. “How did he…?”

“Don’t matter, maybe. Just that it’s done.” He looks down at her--she’s just such a tiny thing--to find she’s looking right back up, a small smile finally lighting up her face. “Suppose it’s safe to go out?”

Cecilia shrugs and stops to listen for a few heartbeats. “I don’t hear the ones out in the front yard either.” She drops her hand, leaving the spot where her fingers had rested only a moment ago just a little bit colder. “We should go make sure Corvo’s alright. Void knows if that whatever it was didn’t affect him too.”

Slackjaw gives a nod and extends a hand out, to usher her away in front of him. “After you, miss.”

He waits while she unlocks the door and steps out from the gloom into the almost unbearable sunlight. What little of her hair that peeks out from underneath her cap lights up in thin threads of red and gold, her skin pale other than her rosy cheeks. She hesitates at the bottom of the broken steps, preparing to jump several feet down to the grass.

Slackjaw taps her elbow. “Allow me, Miss Cecilia.”

Her eyebrows raise up as she considers him, but then she steps aside and nods, watching as he jumps down and extends a hand to her. She looks at the hand and then to his face, her mouth pressed in a thin line that he supposes means reluctant displeasure. When she presses her fingers into his hand, he grips her tight and nods, reaching up as she steps out into the air, catching her about the waist to steady her descent.

She doesn’t let go immediately, searching his face as he looks down at her. Her brow crinkles in lines that send his heart beating hard and fast and if he were any less a gentleman (and he is _not_ a gentleman), he’d lean down and kiss those pink, lush lips.

“You’re a right villain, Mister Slackjaw,” she says, her voice light and airy and tinged with the slightest bit of humor.

“Indeed, miss.” He smirks back at her and wonders if there’s the smallest chance a girl like her would put up with a nefarious bastard such as himself. “Slackjaw’s nothing if not honest.”

She snorts and takes a step backward, his hold on her sadly broken. “Honest for a gang leader, you mean.”

“I’ve never lied to anyone about my dealings. Not even to myself,” he follows her down to the street, stepping around the guards who amazingly still seem to be alive and breathing for all their deathly stillness. “Have never found the need. Slackjaw is what he is, miss. Ain’t no need for sugar coating.”

“Well, you’re lying about one thing,” she says, hurrying toward the building they’d seen Corvo skirt along earlier.

“And what’s that, Miss Ceclia?”

“Your name.” She pulls open a side door, looking back at him with a grin that is far too wicked for her own good.

He wonders what sort of beginning this might be.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a while ago and found it in my wips folder (honestly, I thought I had already put it up...), so you should have it before I forget again.


End file.
